The game of chess probably originated in northern India in the early 7th century AD before migrating to the western world at the end of the 10th century. It rapidly became highly popular and the favourite leisure of clerics and high dignitaries, acting as a representation of the social hierarchy in the Middle Ages. As it prospered through the West, the game underwent multiple transformations especially regarding the iconography of its tokens. The bishop, for example, takes a significant place on the chessboard beneath the king and the queen. As stated by James Robinson (The Lewis Chessmen, London, 2004, pp. 19-23), the presence of the bishop among the chess pieces was a twelfth century European invention. The figure of a prince or an elephant was previously used. The bishop's inclusion reflects his status in the social system of the period, especially in Scandinavia and in England where clerics played significant roles in battlefield conflicts.

It is mainly to Scandinavian and English workshops that the great tradition of early medieval chess sets is attributed. Nonetheless, in his publication Les Ivoires Gothiques Français (loc. cit.), Koechlin maintains that these models gave way to various interpretations, adopting Romanesque characteristics and adapting them to suit contemporary taste in French, German or even Italian workshops.

The bishop piece offered here is represented facing frontally, holding a traditional crozier in his right hand and a gospel book in the other. The style of this token and the decorative motifs on the clothes of the bishop are closely similar to two bishop figures of a tau-cross in the Victoria and Albert Museum which is thought to be English (Beckwith, op. cit., no. 60, ills. 116-7.). However it has also been suggested that the decoration on the reverse is more reminiscent of ivories from northern Germany and more specifically in Cologne.

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